Status Updates From Being There: Why Prioritizi...

help regulate the fear response in their offspring by reducing processing in the brain’s fear center (the amygdala), which decreases the production of adrenaline, cortisol, and dopamine. Research suggests that without that physical and emotional presence, a baby who frequently feels threatened or afraid will become hypervigilant and will not see the world as a safe place.4

A baby expects to be nurtured and protected by her mother; Mom is her buffer against an often-overwhelming world. Regina Sullivan, a neurobiology researcher and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University Langone Medical Center, studies fear in animals. Her research has shown that mothers, through their physical and emotional presence,

Twelve to Twenty-four Months: Little Explorers
Twenty-four to Thirty-six Months: Join Me in My Pretend World
After two years old, playdates become part of the family calendar. Children play together and are more eager for playmates other than their mother, though they may revert to parallel play when they’re tired.

Research by Drs. Grazyna Kochanska, Robert A. Philibert, and Robin A. Barry, /, has shown sensitive and consistent maternal nurturing can change the outcome for a child who has a genetic predisposition for mental health issues. According to the researchers, many children are born with a short allele on their serotonin receptor, which affects their ability to feel pleasure and cope with stress.

Research on oxytocin by Dr. Ruth Feldman/showed the very real biological differences between men and women in terms of nurturing. /normally displayed less touching, /. But when they were given oxytocin via a nasal spray, fathers touched their babies and looked into their eyes more; they showed more sensitive parental behavior overall, but their behavior was still more playful and stimulating than it was calming.

The offspring of mothers who were not well nurtured not only produced less oxytocin but also had fewer activated oxytocin receptors in their brains; with fewer receptors, they also experienced fewer positive effects of oxytocin.

The adage “Use it or lose it” holds true in regard to oxytocin. Insel’s research with voles showed how sensitive mothering is passed down from generation to generation;7 Young’s research reinforced this.8 Insel found that voles were born with a finite number of oxytocin receptors, which were activated by the nurturing of their mothers.

Your baby has been inside your body for nine months, floating in a warm bath, never cold, never hungry, the sounds of the outside world muffled, and lulled by the beat of your heart. When she is born, she is not only exposed and vulnerable physically, she lacks, as psychoanalyst Esther Bick said, an emotional “skin” to cope with the stimulation and frustration of the outside world.

The statistics are frightening. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 11 percent of children between the ages of four and seventeen years in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD. This is a dramatic 16 percent increase since 2007